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Morphing the Stroop

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Title

Morphing The Stroop Effect

Problem Scenario



Broad Question

How does the concept of interference help to explain the Stroop Effect?

Specific Question

Does morphing words affect the Stroop Effect?

Hypothesis

I believe that the Stroop Effect will not occur when the words are morphed.

Graph of Hypothesis

Kiir12-1_HypothesisGraph.png

Variables

Independent Variable:

If the words are morphed.

Dependent Variable:

Time taken to name the ink colors.

Variables That Need To Be Controlled:

Volunteers
Words Used
Order of Words
Type of Morphing Done to Words
If the Words Match the Color

Vocabulary List That Needs Explanation

Psychology - (noun) the science of the mind or of mental states and processes.
Attention - (noun) a concentration of the mind on a single object or thought, especially one preferentially selected from a complex, with a view to limiting or clarifying receptivity by narrowing the range of stimuli.
Perception - (noun) a single unified awareness derived from sensory processes while a stimulus is present.
Stroop Effect - (noun) the effect where word choice and word color clash and it is hard to decipher the two and realize what color or word is the right one that you are supposed to be saying.
Cognitive Psychology - (noun) the branch of psychology studying the mental processes involved in perception, learning, memory, and reasoning

General Plan

I plan to test volunteers to see how long it takes for them to name the ink color of words. I will take the words and morph them to see if it still affects the rate to name the ink color.

Potential Problems And Solutions

None

Safety Or Environmental Concerns

None

Experimental Design

What is your experimental unit?

Volunteers

Number Of Trials:

20

Number Of Subjects In Each trial:

1

Number of Observations:

80

When data will be collected

By March 1st

Where will data be collected?:

School and home

Resources and Budget Table

Item
 Number needed
 Where I will get this
 Cost
Computer with a color printer
 1
 N/A
 $0
Sheets of card stock
 5
 Staples
 $5
Envelopes
 5
 N/A
 $0
Stopwatch
 1
 N/A
 $0
Volunteers
 25
 N/A
 N/A
Poster board
 1
 Staples
 $5












Detailed Procedure

1. Print off 4 pages of color words
2. Explain to volunteers what they will be doing
1.) Naming the ink color and not reading the words
2.) Explain that they will be timed to see how fast they can correctly name the ink color.
3. Time the volunteer and make sure that they don't make any mistakes.
4. If they mistake while reading, tell them and make them start over from where they messed up.
5. Collect data
6. Repeat with each page of color words
7. Do same with 15-25 volunteers
8. Make graph from data and compare results
9. Make a conclusion

Photo List


Time Line

Feb. 15 - Start experiment
March 1 - Finish experiment
March 12 - Conclusion and Discussion,etc. completed.
March 19 - Poster Done
March 29 - KMS Science Fair
May 9 - Regional Science Fair

Data Table

Volunteer #
 Time Taken To Name The Ink Color of The Words (seconds)

Words Match Ink Color
 Words Don't Match Ink Color
 Words Morphed and Match Ink Color
 Words Morphed and Don't Match Ink Color.
1
 42
 129
 62
 122
2
 39
 103
 44
 115
3
 50
 84
 68
 107
4
 39
 84
 42
 89
5
 49
 102
 55
 86
6
 32
 88
 40
 72
7
 52
 162
 60
 103
8
 40
 90
 45
 78
9
 45
 132
 60
 150
10
 60
 110
 69
 85
11
 32
 79
 36
 69
12
 44
 93
 53
 104
13
 36
 123
 52
 113
14
 52
 110
 52
 98
15
 51
 129
 63
 100
16
 44
 81
 45
 75
17
 46
 99
 51
 130
18
 52
 112
 60
 89
19
 41
 119
 46
 113
20
 39
 103
 48
 92


Data Analysis

All Raw Data

See Data Table

Graphs




Photos


Results

For the words that were not morphed and matched the ink color, it took an average of 44.2 seconds for the volunteers to name the ink colors. For the words that weren't morphed, but didn't match the ink color, it took the volunteers an average of103.4 seconds. When the words were morphed and matched the ink color, it took the volunteers an average of 49.7 seconds. When the words were morphed and the words didn't match the ink color, it took an average of 92.1 seconds. It took quite a bit longer for the volunteers to name the ink color when the word did not match the ink color. There was an average difference of 11.3 seconds between the time the volunteers took to name the ink color of the word when the words weren't morphed and didn't match than when they were morphed and didn't match the ink color.

Conclusion

By looking at the data it can be seen that it took longer to name the ink color of the color words when they were not morphed than when they were. It actually took 11.3 seconds longer when the words were not morphed. Therefore, the answer to the specific question that this experiment was done on was, yes, morphing the words does affect the Stroop Effect.

Discussion


Benefit to Community and/or Science

With this experiment, we can learn more about how the brain works and all the amazing things it does. We learn, also, about interference, attention, and perception. With this experiment, we can learn more about things that occur in our everyday lives and make theories about why it does those things.

Background Research

The Stroop Effect was named after a man who studied this effect in 1935, his name was John Ridley Stroop. The study was on the effect of naming ink colors of words when the words matched or didn't match the ink color. The words have a great effect of the ability to name them. The interference between the information your brain receives causes a problem. There are two theories that may explain the Stroop Effect. The first theory is that the interference occurs because words are read faster than colors are named. The second theory is that the interference occurs because naming colors requires more attention than reading words. These theories have to do with perception, attention, and interference. For whatever reason, we know that the Stroop effect exists as proven in this experiment. Do we know the reason? No, we don't. The real question is will we ever?

References


http://www.sciencebuddies.org/Files/3002/2/HumBeh_p029_StroopCircleWords.pdf

http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/HumBeh_p029.shtml#procedure

http://www.sciencebuddies.org/Files/2997/2/HumBeh_p027_StroopWords.pdf

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/words.htm

http://www.apa.org/science/resources/stroop.aspx

http://www.pbs.org/saf/1302/teaching/teaching2.htm

http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Stroop/

Abstract

This experiment was done because it was wondered if morphing words would affect the Stroop Effect. It was hypothesized that the Stroop Effect would not occur if the words were morphed. The conclusion was come to that the Stroop Effect did occur, however, it was not as dramatic of an effect. This experiment was done by printing sheets of color words with different ink colors and having volunteers name the ink colors and not the words. The first sheet had color words that matched the ink color. the second sheet had color words that didn't match the ink color, the third sheet had morphed color words that matched the ink color, and the fourth sheet had morphed words that did not match the ink color. The volunteers were asked to name the ink color and not the word written. If the volunteer messed up on a word, they were told that it was wrong and asked to start over from where they messed up. The data was taken and averaged out to find the results.